Yves St. Laurent, fashion icon, dead at 71
Image: Yves St. Laurent in the ultimate ‘pull-my-finger’.
Image credit: Jean-pierre Muller/Agence France-Presse
Aged 71, Laurent was the successor to Christian Dior that took the fashion world by storm from 1958 onwards. Although best known for being able to say the word ‘couturier’ with a straight face, Laurent was also okay at designing clothes.
In fact, he was particularly good at making high-fashion items that real people actually wanted to wear. Before Laurent, the word ‘couture’ was defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as crazy flaps of fabric draped over heroin-chique osteoambulatory moronomodels with draining-rack cleavage and Medusaline hair.
And while that sort of fashion is still very much en vogue, at least Laurent brought a little sense and sensibility to the art of clothing design.
Laurent was the man behind fabric-printing the works of Dutch artist Piet Mondrian onto sack-like dresses, taking the world by storm with their simple lines and bright designs. He was also the man that finally made it okay for women to wear pants, thereby breaking with an entire civilisation’s passé traditions.
The inventor of the trapese dress has been a soldier, a mental patient and treated with electro-convulsive therapy. He put black women on catwalks, became the first fashion designer honoured by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and was awarded the Légion d’Honneur by French president Jacques Chirac.
When he retired in 2002, he left us with a quote by which he may well be remembered:
I have known fear and the terrors of solitude. I have known those fair-weather friends we call tranquillizers and drugs. I have known the prison of depression and the confinement of hospital. But one day, I was able to come through all of that, dazzled yet sober.
Rest in peace Mr. Laurent. For even I – a mere plebeian in the labyrinthine courts of couture – salute you.
Source: The New York Times
